Trouble
by dust-and-cobwebs
Summary: Jean is away on maternity leave and a very unexpected person takes her place as the grade 12 English teacher...
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Don't own anything related to X-Men… or Kenneth Koch's idea of the _I never told anyone_ poem

A/N: sorry, I have this horrible habit of starting something and not finishing it, but I'll try to finish the other stories I started. Um… please r/r, and if you have any thoughts on where this should go, some input would be nice. This chapter is in Rogue's p.o.v. Thanks to *() for telling me about the mistakes in my story =P  
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Monday

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It was Monday and I had English class with Jean, or Mrs. Summers as people called her because she was now married. She was pregnant, and we all knew that. Whenever she was away Ororo usually subbed for her, but that rarely ever happened. Jean liked to teach our class, grade 12 English. Actually I think she enjoyed the subject more than whom she was teaching the subject to. We knew she was going to leave eventually because the baby was due soon, and we all started these crazy rumours on who was going to be our next English teacher. I entered the classroom and sat down.

Remy was busying himself by blowing kisses at the girls and watching as they swooned, Bobby was trying his best not to look at me, Jubilee was nowhere to be seen as usual, John was playing with his lighter, resisting the urge to burn the stack of papers on Jean's desk, Kitty was amusing herself by phasing Piotr, while he was busy trying to act tough, and all the other students were showing off their powers to each other. I just sat there and worked on the poetry assignment Jean had given us last class and tried my best to ignore the other students. They were never this insane before class, and it suddenly hit me that maybe they all knew something that I didn't know. I looked around, and I saw that everyone was avoiding making eye contact with me. Strange. I looked up at the clock, and it was ten minutes into the period. Even stranger, Jean always came on time. I was rudely interrupted from this thought as Bobby tapped me on the shoulder.

"Hey, I heard that Mrs. Summers' gone and the new teacher is-" he got cut off as the door opened with a bang. All heads turned towards the door. This was not happening. 

The individual standing in the doorway muttered something along the lines of "ugh, kids," The door closed, and we all watched as the individual trudged to the front of the room looking extremely grumpy and unorganized.

"Uhh… I think you all know my name, but if you don't know, my name's Logan. I will ask you now not to call me Professor or Mr. or anything of the like. It irritates me. Mrs. Summers is on maternity leave, and so you're stuck here with me. If you don't cause any trouble, the rest of the school year will be a breeze for both of us, but should you cause any trouble, I will not hesitate to unsheathe my claws. Okay, maybe not that extreme, but you get the point. All right, can anyone tell me what I'm supposed to do? Mrs. Summers only told me what you did last class," Silence followed. Suddenly the door burst open and in rushed a very flustered looking Jubilee. Her books were piled high in her arms, and she had papers tucked in her pockets, under her arms, and a few were sticking out of her purse. She dumped everything onto her desk beside mine and plopped herself down onto the chair. 

"Sorry, err, Mr. err... Logan. I had some business to take care of… Did 'ya take attendance yet?" she asked.

"Ah right, that's what I'm supposed to do… attendance," he looked around Jean's desk for something that looked like an attendance sheet. Miraculously he found it.

"Okay. I say your name, and you say 'here'. Uhh… Bobby?"

"Here,"

"John?" 

"Here,"

"Jubileelee?"

"It's Jubilee. Oh right, here," That went on for some time, most of which I daydreamed through until-

"Rogue? Rogue's in this class? I never knew she was in this class, are you sure she's here?" Logan's voice penetrated my thoughts.

"Oh right, yeah, I'm here," Gosh, had I really been that invisible? I ignored the rest of roll call and began to daydream again.

"Hey, Wolverine! Show us your claws!" shouted John. Logan stared at him.

"Please? Just for us 'cuz our class is so awesome?" John asked. Logan stared at him again.

"No," Logan answered curtly. "Alright class, Kitty's going to go around and collect your poetry assignments, then she's going to give you a copy of today's assignment which I am going to collect at the end of class," The poetry assignment was to write a ballade. I didn't really give much thought to it, as I hated writing ballades. Kitty stood up and collected the assignments and handed out today's assignment. I read it and I choked. 

"We're going to write _I never told anyone_ poems, following Kenneth Koch's method. Please be honest. You'll have to incorporate the poetic techniques you've learned over the past few weeks-metaphor, simile, imagery alliteration, a chorus or refrain such as "but I am telling it now", and a title that frames the entire poem. Remember that a good poem manipulates its reader, and has a balance between all the emotions. You have an hour left to work on it, and you don't have to put your name on it, you can just tell me which one's yours so that I can record your mark. I'm going to read them in front of everyone next class, but I won't read the names, so your secrets are safe with me, " Logan sat down at Jean's desk and propped his feet up onto the desk.

Everyone was silent, and no eyebrows were raised at Logan's inappropriate action as a schoolteacher. I was freaking out. By writing this poem, Logan would know everything about me. I wasn't afraid that people like Bobby and John were going to hear the contents of my soul, but I was afraid of Logan hearing them. I sighed and got to work.

The bell rang and we all handed in our papers to Logan. We left without a word. I had written the biggest piece of bullshit ever, but it didn't matter because I knew I was safe. These secrets of mine were ones I wanted to keep. Logan didn't deserve to know them. I decided to spend the evening in my room alone. I contemplated on whether or not I would fail English because Logan was my teacher and because I couldn't stop thinking about him during and after class. Jubilee came into the room and dragged me down to the dining hall. 


	2. Monday Evening

Disclaimer: Don't own anything related to X-Men or Kenneth Koch's _I never told anyone_ poem.

A/N: Thanks to the people who reviewed, and thanks to Lee Tea for being such a cool beta-reader! By the way, I'm sorry if this chapter isn't funny…(I actually don't intend to make it funny… but it might happen due to the use of some stupid jokes). Humor and this author don't get along too well…(sorry if this is kind of short)

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Monday night

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I decided not to go to dinner that night as I had about forty different assignments to mark. Why couldn't Jean have taught a different class? I wouldn't have minded teaching defense class to a bunch of doe-eyed kids in the danger room. Jean and Scott's wedding had definitely not been one of the more joyful times of my life, but I guess I had to move on sometime. I only accepted the offer to teach Jean's class because Jean asked me to, so I guess that means I still feel something for her, and also because the other option was that I would take care of their child, which I declined right away. 

I absentmindedly picked up the assignment on top of the mountainous pile and got to work. I glanced at the name written at the top of the assignment, Kitty Pryde. 

"I never told Piotr Rasputin I had a huge crush on him

Or that I stare at him during class all the time …" I groaned. This was going to be a very long evening. I got through almost all of the _I never told anyone_ poems when I finally got to Rogue's, which was the only one left. I hesitated; did I really want to read this? After all, she had one of the darkest pasts I had ever heard of, and there was probably someone else living beneath that perpetual smile of hers. I sighed; I had to read it. It was my duty as a teacher to mark assignments, not judge people by them.

"I never told anyone about many things,

And because they were things I never told anyone,

They're secrets, like something you keep.

Here's when you laugh over bright, pink, vinyl curtains.

Here's when you cry over crazy canaries.

Here's when you stop reading my fucking poem," I was absolutely horrified. This was one piece of bullshit. I knew Rogue wrote wonderful poetry; Jean used to brag to me about her best students all the time. I knew she deserved more than a D on a poetry assignment like this. I put her assignment aside and grabbed the pile of ballades I had to mark next. These were the type of poems I preferred; they were graphic, and the themes were excellent: unrequited love, a lot of blood and gore, doom and gloom… and the like. I got through this pile in less than half an hour.   
Jean came into the room and asked me how I was doing. I told her I was doing all right, and that her students were bizarre. I asked her about Rogue and showed her the poem Rogue had written. Jean looked at me funny and told me that if I had second thoughts on anything maybe I should ask Rogue myself. She also told me that the poem was perfectly legitimate because it used all the writing conventions they had discussed in class. She crossed out the _D_ I had written and put an A+ on it. She leafed through the rest of the assignments I had marked and shook her head.

"Logan, you mark too hard. They're students, not writing machines," she informed me.

"I thought we were training them for university, college and the like," I replied

"Well, the way you're marking them, maybe they won't even make it past grade twelve," she countered.

"Alright then, I'm going to start again. Do you…uhh… by any chance have any beer?" I asked her. She looked at me, raised her eyebrow and walked out of the room. Ah fuck! I crossed out all of the marks I had given the papers and started all over again. Back to square one.


End file.
